Trio extort money posing as police, held in Matunga

The men posed as policemen from the Kalyan crime branch while threatening a paan shop owner

The Matunga police have arrested three persons for impersonating policemen and raiding a paan shop in Matunga to extort money.

Prakash Thumre, 37, Durgesh Gupta, 51, and Harshad Batkar, 32, on Sunday posed as policemen from the Kalyan crime branch while threatening Ashish Pandey, the paan shop owner, for illegally selling gutkha. They said they would register a case against Pandey if he did not pay them ₹15,000.

“The amount was then brought down to ₹6,000,” said a policeman from the Mautunga police station. “The paan-wala handed them ₹3,000 and asked them to wait further before contacting the police.”

Along with an assistant police inspector of police, three constables reached the paan shop and apprehended the fake policemen.

Thumre, Gupta and Batkar were found having more than ₹40,000 in cash. “They claim this is the first time they tried to pull off something like this but they may have a history of the same. Batkar claims he works with the Police Times newspaper and may have done this earlier,” the official said.

Balasaheb Kakad, a senior police inspector with the Matunga police station said the case against the trio was registered under sections 420(cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 170 (personating a public servant) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

Kakad said further investigations are also on.